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[Dri]

Been doing some reading around and it seems quite a few players favor a single, overpowered ship and completely ignore their fleet save for a few freighters that never see combat. This doesn't at all seem like the spirit of Starsector to me in which you role play as a FLEET admiral. Now, to be fair, most of these players I've observed seem to be heavily into modding where they can get a hold of weapons and ships of less than dubious balance, lol

So, Alex, is your grand vision to have a lone combat flagship, with a few freighters in tow, that can take down entire enemy fleets be a valid setup? With the way things are now you really can't argue that it isn't cost effective/efficient but as I said it doesn't seem to be the way Starsector is intended to be. Why bother with larger, slower fleets with a balanced diversity of fighters, frigates, destroyers and cruisers when you can pilot a single high-end combat ship and wreck entire fleets? Hell, it's not just effective but also FUN to pilot a single god mode ship and solo enemy armadas, but, this needs to be addressed for the sake of Starsector's mid to endgame balance.

[Tartiflette]

I don't have a problem with that as long as the game is enjoyable with fleets. I don't see why something should be done against it: after all the more people enjoy playing the game the way they want the better, right?

[Blaze]

I say let people play the way they want to play.

If this was a multiplayer game I'd have a very different attitude, but it isn't.

As I see it, combat and mod-ability is the only thing this game has right now. Trade is just a way to get into combat. Diplomacy is nonexistent, the player has practically no effect on the game at large, and fleet control is an expensive, time consuming crapshot.

Maybe when some of this changes we'll see more diversity of playstyles, but until then; I find the gameplay best experienced with me at the helm shooting down ships, looting their cargo, and hearing the lamentations of their women.

Solo Diable Avionics Hayle with max skills, go.

[Toxcity]

I'm okay with letting people solo or use small fleets. Even so, I don't think this happens in vanilla at all.

[Protonus]

In my view, I do believe certain Fleet Admirals actually done it right having a very large, yet single ship as an entire fleet instead of just a large group of smaller ships to do their bidding. Since having too many ships can be drastic for logistics and would be ironic downfall certain leaders usually have.

But still, in your point, you still have Freighter ships to look over, so you are still technically a Fleet Admiral.

And this is just my opinion.

[Schwartz]

Less of a trend and more of a playstyle born from an increasingly cut-throat handling of CR and supplies. It's simply cheaper and more effective to do, not the only thing you can do. But yes, tolerances should be loosened a bit and the Combat skill tree needs an overhaul in the direction of what SS+ is doing.

[Thaago]

My take: the skills that boost the player ship are amazingly, ludicrously powerful. The easiest game style is to take advantage of that, and its fun too.

To have another kind of fun I've been playing a game recently where I do the exact opposite and take ONLY skills that benefit the whole fleet rather than individual ships. So no combat tree or gunnery implants. I've been having a blast (and am seeing that the AI is VERY good at keeping ships alive - I keep on overestimating my ships abilities and getting in tricky situations)  - the main thing however is that level 10 enemy capitals are HARD! Its actually very fun to have to deal with them, but without a boosted ship yourself they can inflict serious damage if you don't manage the rest of the fleet carefully.

[Pushover]

I think another question to ask the people who chain flagships: Do you play with full or half damage taken by your flagship in the settings? I can easily see chain flagships working very well even without combat skills when your flagship is literally twice as tough as another ship of the same class.

[Midnight Kitsune]

I think another question to ask the people who chain flagships: Do you play with full or half damage taken by your flagship in the settings? I can easily see chain flagships working very well even without combat skills when your flagship is literally twice as tough as another ship of the same class.

I play with full damage on and I fly a single ship but lately I've been using a small fleet. The reason why I do? Because the AI is a DUMB*** sadly... I've given it ships where it should have been able to survive and it didn't.

Also, *points to my signature*

[Thaago]

I've actually come to realize the AI is very good at keeping ships alive... most of the time (it sometimes runs a frigate into a death ball, but eh, I can stop it if I'm paying attention). The player bonuses are just so massive that we think ships are a lot tougher than they really are...

[Dri]

I agree that Combat 10 is near ludicrously powerful. It's also very fun! Would simply nerfing it be the best route? If yes, then better do it soon because as more people grow accustomed to this level of power the harder it'll be when it gets stripped from them!

Anyways, I realize that there is still so much more work on the campaign to patch in, maaany balance passes to make and even some mechanic change-ups to toss in. I just wanted to bring to light that the current meta-game is heading towards the solo, Combat 10/Tech 10 flagship that's basically god mode, and as a result of that, the whole fleet admiral thing is looking rather undesirable in most cases. I personally hope the Fleet Admiral wins out over the Hotshot Mercenary and his one souped up ship.

[orost]

The issue that's causing the domination of the solo tactic is not skills being overpowered, it's the desperate scarcity of decent hulls and weapons in the Sector. A large fleet battle will involve losses, and when replacing ships is so difficult that even a single lost ship is an unacceptable failure justifying a reload and retry, the only reasonable thing to do is to never put ships in the AI's hands.

As the sector expands and industry options are added, I'm sure the balance will shift.

Personally, I play with Omnifactory so that I can have cool big battles, and when a large portion of my fleet inevitably blows up that costs me just a lot of credits, and not hours of real time flying from market to market hoping to find a replacement hull.

[Linnis]

A high level and low level character makes too much difference, even with officers, you will have two ships apparently the same, but one is a beast while the other is a pushover.

Once officers roll out with different skills and levels in combat things will get pretty weird and random pretty fast.

Also once you leveled up, the game gets easier... Normally it should be the player leveling up to tackle harder and stronger challenges, but now its the players level up, but the world is still the same, so it turns in to command one ship and destroy everything (sometimes faster too! Because enemies come to you and not sitting at the corner of the map having a frigate duel that can last minuets)

[Midnight Kitsune]

I agree that Combat 10 is near ludicrously powerful. It's also very fun! Would simply nerfing it be the best route? If yes, then better do it soon because as more people grow accustomed to this level of power the harder it'll be when it gets stripped from them!

Anyways, I realize that there is still so much more work on the campaign to patch in, maaany balance passes to make and even some mechanic change-ups to toss in. I just wanted to bring to light that the current meta-game is heading towards the solo, Combat 10/Tech 10 flagship that's basically god mode, and as a result of that, the whole fleet admiral thing is looking rather undesirable in most cases. I personally hope the Fleet Admiral wins out over the Hotshot Mercenary and his one souped up ship.

Alex has said, IIRC, that the skill system is going to get changed up before the final release. Most likely that will happen when we get officers. (So maybe next patch!)
Also you might want to try out SS+ as it gives enemy fleets captains and flagships that empower them with the same skills you have, the skills also provide bonuses to the rest of the fleet as well. And they get access to 20% more OP then the player as well

[Linnis]

Personally, I play with Omnifactory so that I can have cool big battles, and when a large portion of my fleet inevitably blows up that costs me just a lot of credits, and not hours of real time flying from market to market hoping to find a replacement hull.

If you know your way you can just grab any non (D) hull and turn it combat effective with basic weapons. You are not trying to create perfect fleet every time, a perfectly built tempest and decent weapons cost as much as 3 vigilance, not the mention the time effort to finding it, and two cheaply armed vigilance is way better then a single tempest in fleet battles.